


The Fruit of Freedom

by originally



Category: David Blaize - E. F. Benson
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8889469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/pseuds/originally
Summary: Frank spends a summer in Baxminster before David goes up to Cambridge.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



Summer had settled upon Baxminster like a warm blanket, and with it had come Frank Maddox.

The Blaizes had been more than welcoming to Frank when he had arrived, trunk in tow and overflowing with books. He was here ostensibly to stay with his uncle, the Bishop, but that gentleman had seen precious little of his nephew in the weeks since David, spilling over with excitement, had met him off the train.

Their summer days had since been spent very pleasurably in the garden beneath the mulberry tree, David lying supine on the lawn with his yellow hair spread, halo-like, around his head as Frank leaned against the tree’s knotted trunk and read to him from Homer or Ovid. Now and then they had been joined by Margery, on which occasions Frank would choose to recite romantics instead—Keats, of course, or Wordsworth—and delight in the twin expressions of rapture on the faces of both Blaizes. At other times they had commandeered the lawn for cricket practice, though the central position of the tree on the pitch rendered the potential for games rather limited in scope as David was wont to grumble about. Instead, Frank had engaged in the worthy task of improving David’s batting stance. Margery had proved herself a jolly competent wrist spinner in aid of this endeavour, much to Frank’s uncharitable surprise and even more uncharitable consternation. He could, if pressed, admit that he had envisioned cricket as a pastime that would belong to him and David alone, perhaps in its unfolding recapturing an echo of the triumphal bliss of that final House match they had played at Marchester. The lurking thoughts, however, of how he should have to lay hands on him, to sculpt his stance and posture as Michelangelo once had his own marble David, he was loath to admit even to himself.

He pushed those beastly ideas aside, but the desire for time alone with David lingered. Frank, as a scholar of Cambridge, was all too aware of the changes that would come for David once he went up to that hallowed institution. Keeping David apart from filth had been Frank’s opus magnum, but the time might soon come when he could no longer do so. David was almost a man grown now, with all the swagger and confidence that implied. He was older, in fact, than Frank had been when he had sworn his oath that day in the bathroom, yet the thought that some other fellow, some new Hughes, should whisper in David’s ear was entirely unbearable.

Frank lowered the book. “David, old chap,” he said, “what say you we have ourselves an adventure?”

“Rather,” said David, who was blessedly innocent of all Frank’s inner musings. He lifted his head from where he had been half dozing at Frank’s feet and added, “But what did you have in mind?”

“You do have a ripping lot of hill forts and Roman ruins and things of that sort here in Sussex. I thought we might take a picnic and head out into the weald.”

“Oh, ripping suggestion,” said David. “I’ll see what Margery thinks.”

“Hold on a tick,” said Frank quickly. “Actually, I thought… well, it’s been so dreadfully long since we spent time together without anyone else. I should rather like it to be just us this time.”

David’s face lit up with that familiar inner light that Frank would never tire of, the kind that made him appear cherubic despite his strapping stature. “I should enjoy that too,” he said. “Oh, but wouldn't you get frightfully bored with only me for company?”

“I haven't so far,” said Frank, and the smile David bestowed on him was nothing short of radiant.

An adventure called for provisions, so David’s mother supplied them with a wicker basket covered with a pristine white cloth. When Frank pulled it back, he found bread and cheese and hard-boiled eggs, crisp radishes and glossy tomatoes, a terracotta pot of something meaty topped with muslin, and, nestling in the corner, a bowl of plump strawberries like little red jewels. All preparations duly completed and this splendid bounty safely settled in the crook of Frank’s arm, they started out into the wilds of Sussex, David waving gaily until they turned the corner out of sight of the house.

They had chosen a rather excellent day for it, Frank thought approvingly to himself, and then said as much out loud. Though it was barely mid-morning the sun was already blazing, causing Frank to pull his boater down more firmly over his ears. David seemed to have no such concerns; his skin had already turned brown as a nut over the last few weeks, under the smatterings of freckles that had cropped up on his arms and across the bridge of his nose. He whistled a rather tuneful hymn as they went along, the airy notes floating out over the verdant green and disappearing up into the cloudless sky.

“Is that the one about valiance and fighting foes and all that business?” asked Frank, and David finished the verse in his high, clear tenor, “To be a pilgrim.”

“Rather apropos,” said Frank.

“I thought so,” David replied. “I say, do you have an idea of where we’re going or shall I pick a direction?” They had arrived at a fork in the path. One branch lead over a stile and through a field filled with tall pea stalks, and the other wound away from them toward a thicket of trees.

“I trust you,” said Frank. David favoured him with another of his smiles and strode forth toward the forest path.

“It’s jolly exciting to sally forth with no sort of idea of where we’re going,” said David as they walked down under the cool canopy of trees. “Do you suppose the Athenians felt this way when they went off to war? Perhaps we’ll run across some Spartans.” He danced a few steps forward in what was presumably an imitation of a sword lunge but looked to Frank’s eye more like he was stepping up to bowl.

“I dare say they did,” he said indulgently, tempting though it was to rag David for it. He spoke a few words instead, on Athens and glory.

“Thucydides,” David said with a laugh. “Gosh, do you remember that row over the cribs? We thought you such an unbending master to begin with and then the Head came and terrified us all into behaving. I think I should be able to recite that passage in my sleep, it's so ingrained.”

“Let's hear it then,” said Frank. His lips twitched, only half with amusement; the memory of punishing David for cribbing was one he preferred not to think about.

“Oh, but I do so enjoy it when you recite,” said David, so earnestly that Frank could no more say no to him than spread his wings and fly. They passed a happy hour following the path between the trees, accompanied by Frank’s Greek.

The rumble of David’s stomach reminded them both of the possibility of lunch, so they found some likely tree stumps to perch on at the edge of a bubbling stream. Frank found that it had been well worth the price of hauling the basket all this way to hear David exclaim over the strawberries, to watch him eat them with such relish, his lips stained red with juice.

Frank should have been expecting it when David, satisfied finally, began to strip off his clothes with little thought for modesty or for the fate of the articles strewn across the grass. As he was not, he found his eyes lingering too long on the breadth of David’s shoulders and the curve of his back, his muscular legs. He no longer had the body of a boy but of a man; there was strength promised there, and Frank could no longer delude himself that David was a young innocent in need of his protection.

“Come on, Maddox,” David called, already striding down to the water. “Last one in is a Spartan.”

It took no more than a moment’s hesitation before Frank stripped off his own clothes to join him.

The water was frigid despite the warm day and it wasn't long before they escaped back up to the bank, laughing and wrestling one another for position. David started up a tale of a time he had swum with Bags, which Frank gave half an ear to. He lay back on the grass, gazing up at the sunlight streaming through the trees and allowing David’s voice to wash over him. There would be a fitting poem for this, he thought; the right words to make David’s eyes light up the way they did when Frank quoted something beautiful to him. He saw now that he had had it backwards; he wasn't losing something as David grew and changed and no longer needed him. David had already grown and changed and still wanted him, still turned to Frank when there was something he wanted to share.

For now, Frank would forget Cambridge and the changes that would yet come. For now, he knew David would come back to him.


End file.
